Learning how to learn with Dr. Leonard Lye

so uh this is the title of my talk is about learning how to learn how do you actually plan your study so that you have time to relax time to exercise and all the stuff okay so I mean it's easy to say yeah you need to do this you need to do that but actually how do you actually do it now the techniques I'm want to tell you they're all well documented and they're well researched and in fact those research are very new okay they just published in 2013 145 actually right although although what I'm going to tell you what the techniques that have been published and and uh known to be very effective are techniques I've been using since 1969 when I was in grade seven yeah yeah I'm old I taught Drrder when he was in term two imagine I was 15 years old then so anyway you don't need to know too much about me I'm associate Dean in grad studies currently um so I was I was uh discipline chair of civil engineering for nine years so I have helped a lot of students who are in the verge of failure kind of thing and uh pull them back from the bring using this technique so hopefully this will be useful for you so studying is a skill and it's a skill that can be learned and needs to be taught because not everybody know how to study right you probably got you know manage to get good marks when you're in high school uh you might just remember stuff you know without even paying attention too much but when you uh need to study five subjects or at one time seven and there's a lot of work you need to plan your time right so how do you do that actually and when you are studying how do you actually study so that's what this talk is all about and learning how to study effectively of course is critical to your success right so like I said I'm going to talk about proven effective techniques for study not just my idea or something it's not okay is this is all research done by uh educational psychologist cognitive psychologist and people like that right so and also like I said after reading all these articles just all happened I came across them I said Jes is exactly what I was doing for so many years right and I have two kids both in their 30s uh they have multiple master's degree so they also use this technique since since junior high school so I think it's successful so this kind of technique can be uh learned and be useful for you guys for teachers to teach their students and for academic advisers as well so and it can be used for all situations basically term test final exam comprehensive exams whatever you want so I'm going to talk about proven techniques for stud study um how to plan your study period how to study and also I will tell you what are the ineffective techniques these are the techniques that are very common in fact surprisingly right and hopefully you won't use these techniques anymore and also effective methods of taking notes right and also some useful techniques for changing your mindset so that you can study better and uh and this kind of tips usually help you with understanding and also retention okay so here starts okay these are the actual mechanics of actually doing it so I'm going to talk about two things two techniques one is called distribute is a fancy term right this what the uh psychology call it distributed practice basically it is studying in small blocks spread over periods of time intervals right it's called interval practice for those of you who have been involved in sports or coaching sports or or even playing piano or something right you go to lessons once a week normally for half an hour right with your teacher and then you go home and you practice if you don't practice your your parent scream at you right CU they pay big bucks for you to go to lessons and then you go for another lesson you learn more stuff and then you practice again right you don't go to a piano lesson once a month for 4 hours and say you know that's it for the month for 4 hours and then you go home and don't do anything and then you go for another four hours don't remember anything right I mean so studying is exactly the same you have to practice on regular intervals right that's what to what they call cramming or end Mass study I think a lot of you do that oh before the exam you're going to study till 3:00 a. m. in the morning next morning you couldn't get up or you get up you half asleep when you go to exam you don't remember anything it's normal a bad technique right burning the midnight oil they call it now like I said Recent research I I put all these references in case you want to read them in case you don't want to believe me right has shown that distribute practice is the best me method to retain what you have studied how to do that I'll show you right like I said I've used this technique uh with my kids I've used it myself and I've saved many students in bring of failure bring them back to life right kind of thing so using this technique you know exactly when to study what to study ahead of time so that you have less stress less anxiety better retention no Panic and also no need to uh burn the midnight one sound like a Salesman right so in fact somebody even compos a little poetry about that he's a researcher at UBC so this is a picture basically you study you know spread over an interval of time right now so some basic rules uh the best thing to do is not to study for too long in one session okay my suggestion is from 1 to 1 and 1 half hours maximum and then take a 15 minute break or maybe do 20 if you want 15 is good enough between sessions go for a walk get fresh air exercise do something play with your dog or something I'm sure your dog will be crying for attention by that okay stick to the plan for a week especially when you're doing for the first time because you don't know whether you need make to make adjustments I normally don't study on Fridays at all Friday night I said I don't you know kick back and relax Saturday morning Sunday mornings I usually just go to the gym and you know enjoy myself right I don't study I exercise of course uh now another thing is don't let homework distract from your study session sometimes you you let homework this hijack your studies you know study periods don't let them do that try to find other times to do your homework or schedule it in right so that it doesn't distract from your plan study period okay I have handouts for you guys only 20 copies I don't know how many going to show up so I I here I give an example right let's say I I need to take five cuses I chose those Nam just because it's going to be AB bcde okay probably I don't anybody do a degree with that kind of causes maybe maybe liberal arts or something but any ABCDE let's say so that's the first thing to do you need to list down what are the ca you're going to take so obviously if you're an engineer you know exactly what the five causes are next thing to do you need time you need to spend some time doing this okay and I'll make you an offer if you have any problem with this technique come and see me free of charge okay no cost so you need to decide which CA requires more time which require less five causes I'm sure some of them are a lot more difficult or you have more difficult right more difficulty with them some probably are easy causes I don't know right uh some probably don't read a lot of study anyway so you need to decide which are the ones that you need a lot more time and which less so as an example just say let's assume there are five causes and it's you know assume that the uh cost a requires the most time cost e requires the least time right or if you think that they all equally weighted they're all less tough well then give equal weight to all of them right so the weighting depends on individuals of course right the next step is you need to do an inventory of the study slots that you have for the week so let's say each study starts 1 hour with a 15 minute break right let's say you start at 700 p.

m. each day so you would have at least three sessions maybe four even so if you do one and a half hours per session you would have three but uh this way you have four okay so four study slots per day Monday to Thursday I'll give you 16 Slots of course everybody's going to be different okay everybody's going to be different on weekends maybe say let's start at 1:00 p. m.